TL/DR rating below

I remember playing this game series with Gears of War when it first came out in 2006...2005?...Somewhere around that time, and man oooohhh man was I addicted to the crabwalking/Gridlock multiplayer grind. Here we are 14 years later, with the fifth installment into the series, and I gotta say, papa likey. I will be as unbiased as possible ladies and gents.

Pros.
- Gameplay - There's nothing special about gears of war combat and overall gameplay, you shoot the bad guy, he die. You see a cool weapon on the ground, pick it up and kill. However its not just kill, it's more like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ KILL ALL THOSE BAD DUDES, BLOW HIS HEAD OFF AND BATHE IN THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMY. Meaning its gory, and satisfying.
- Story - Ah yes the campaign, so here's the jist from the previous games. Some wart lookin dudes dont wanna die, so a human genocide begins. Then glowy warts come up and now the wart genocide begins. Humans win, then the warts decide to come back, but with bling. All the gears games have always handled the Story similarly, linear gameplay, tight corridors, always killing baddies. Gears 5 says "Linear? naaaa fool, go explore", and that's kinda it. The levels are ALOT more expansive, and some of the weather mechanics are PREEETTTYYYY, but its still the same o'l gears of war style of campaign.
- Side Missions - So with a more "explorer" type story, there's now a bit of side missions to do so you can unlock some extra upgrades for your lil bot (who is playable).
- Co-op - Gears 5 handles co-op really really cool. Its 3 player co-op, however one person will be lucky and be able to play as a lil floaty dude who electrocutes and heals and pretty much is the support class is any MMO. It's new, it's inovative (FOR GEARS), and I can easily spend a good 10 hours on the campaign with some buds.
- Weapons - Dude there's a machine gun with a damn chainsaw attached to it, if that ain't cool, then you're probably a really boring person. Joking, You're not....maybe. Any way so the gun's in this game are freakin neat. Each weapon can be utilized prefectly in almost every situation, and the way they just demolish your enemies with a satisfying kick and crunch, it can almost never get boring....almost. Weapons are fun, attractive ( I have a date with the EMBAR btw), brutal, and each have their own personality.
- Characters - Every lovable character in Gears is back baby (RIP Dom), and the new cast of goodies act really well, and also bring some extreme talent in the field of voice acting. If a movie is ever made, they better have these voice actors play as their characters in game, idgaf if they have to take steroids to get meaty, I want them. Also Marcus really should go to therapy.
- Multiplayer - Multiplayer in Gears has always been good. Here it's the same thing, except the weapons are pretty balanced (as of January 2020), it's no longer a gnasher/lancer fest. Alot more weapons and strategies are utilized better. The game modes are nice, with a change to the weekly pick every...week, and with an incentive to keep playing they have great skins for weapons and characters to unlock, guaranteed you're actually gonna spend some time playing, cause these things do take some playing time to unlock.
- Horde 78.0 - Horde is a wave based game mode with a bit of Gears spiced into it. You can place upgrades around the map to help prevent you and your time from dying so damn fast, especially in later waves, speaking of waves, at the end of every 10th wave you fight a boss which are all damn cool. Each character comes with their own ability to utilized in this game mode which are all pretty unique and interesting to use. My only gripe is that this game mode is fun only if you play with friends, or PEOPLE THAT KNOW WHAT THE HELL THEY"RE DOING.
- Graphics - Wow this game is beautiful man. I've played all the pretty games like The Last of Us, Uncharted, FInal Fantasy and so on, but none of those have can compete with this pretty on the eyes babe. The facial animation is so good, and the detail within the environments and weather effects are so good that every developer should look at this game if they wanna make wind and storms look good.

CONS.

- Escape - introduced in Gears 5 is a new time based mode where you need to escape a facility before you die of toxic fart gas. It can be such a great time, but for some reason the only people that play this mode ARE MISSING THEIR FRONTAL CORTEX.Almost every single random i've played with literally need to go back to elementary, and learn the basics of common sense and direction. This mode is so good when I play with friends and people that aren't absolute morons, but that's rare, so here I am using this review to complain about it.
- EA-IFIED - The micro-transactions in this game makes my stomach want to be ripped out and used as a damn dish bowl. $10 dollars for a blue weapons skin, BLUE THATS IT IT"S JUST ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BLUE AND FOR ONLY ONE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WEAPON???? WHAT IS THIS?! So thankfully they kinda fixed this by adding "sales" and cutting the ridiculous prices in half, but the damage has already been done. Yes you don't have to buy anything to enjoy the game, but holy crap is that such a greedy practice for the Coalition to do.
- Maps - The maps aren't bad in this game, matter of fact they're delicious. The thing is there's barely any maps at all. Thankfully with OPERATION 2 they added in a couple new maps and some fan favorites from Gears 4, but it's still not enough.

Conclusion.
- Gears 5 is like eating some amazing gourmet cake that taste like heaven, but then leaves an aftertaste of garlic. The gameplay is the same old gears, IMO that's a good thing cause shooty shooty make me happy happy. It's wonderful on the eyes, and the multiplayer adds some some great blood pumping fun that I wont get bored of any time soon, hence the 80+ hours I have in it already. The campaign is pretty good, for me even more so because I do find what they did in this installment pretty interesting, BUT THAT CHOICE WITHIN THE CAMPAIGN THEY GIVE YOU IS A BIG SLAP TO THE BUTT CHEEKS. The game modes are all fun, especially arcade and free for all, but they need to fix Escape, because im tired of playing with people that cant count up to 5. The microtransactions are disgusting, fixed a bit, but nonetheless disgusting. Overall I enjoy coming back to this honey boo and playing it with a big o'l smile on my face, and from the changes and additions they're making to the multiplayer, I see this being one of the best Gears games to have ever been released. Unless I accidentally open the store page, then my opinion and hopes drop below normal freezing and I get sick and worried.

TL/DR - Gameplay is fun, Mircrotransactions can kiss my butt, great modes except escape, good campaign, fun mutliplayer.
Rating
-Released 7/10
-As of January 2020 8/10